Ken Blackwell: Cochran Owes Win to 'Dark Side' of Politics

The victory of Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi over tea party activist and state Sen. Chris McDaniel in a Republican runoff represents the "dark side of American politics,'' former Ohio secretary of state and mayor of Cincinnati Ken Blackwell says.

"This is a deliberate attempt to mis-define and destroy a legitimate challenge to the establishment and most notably to the status quo,'' Blackwell told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"We're not going to get back to those things that have made us exceptional — the supremacy of God in the culture, a smaller government, a strong and robust defense and a growing economy — by saying, what we need is more pork, more dependency and larger government,'' Blackwell said Wednesday.

Establishment Republicans rallied Democrats and African Americans to come out to the polls and give Cochran — who has been in office since 1978 — a squeaker of a win by a margin of about 51 percent to 49 percent.

A bitter McDaniel, who accused Cochran of abandoning conservative values, later said:

"There is something a bit strange, there is something a bit unusual, about a Republican primary that's decided by liberal Democrats.''

Blackwell, a senior fellow for family empowerment at the Family Research Council, said Cochran's supporters should not count on those same votes in the general election this fall.

"If those folks who got those liberal Democrats to come into the Republican primary think that they're going to stick with Cochran in November, I got a bridge that I need to [sell them],'' he said.

The victory of Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi over tea party activist and state Sen. Chris McDaniel in a Republican runoff represents the "dark side of American politics,'' former Ohio secretary of state and mayor of Cincinnati Ken Blackwell says.